Harnessing Sustainable Motivation: A Grounded Theory Exploration of Public Service Motivation in Local Governments of the State of Oregon, United States

Sajjad Haider, Guoxian Bao, Gary L. Larsen and Muhammad Umar Draz
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Sajjad Haider: School of Management, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
Guoxian Bao: School of Management, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
Gary L. Larsen: Hatfield School of Government, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207, USA
Muhammad Umar Draz: Department of Management and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar 32610, Malaysia

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-30

Abstract: Employee motivation has always been a matter of concern for both public and private sector organizations. Since the industrial revolution in the late 18th century, organizations have struggled to foster workforce motivation and morale to enhance productivity. While a plethora of literature focuses on private sector motivation research, public sector organizations receive only modest scholarly attention. However, a new concept has emerged in public management literature during the late 1980s and 1990s, later known as public service motivation (PSM). The debate about PSM is premised on the notion that the motivation of public sector employees is quite different from their private sector counterparts because of their orientation to public service. Perry and Wise (1990) expressed this concept in the theory of PSM. Subsequently, a growing stream of scholarship has emerged which explores the many aspects of antecedents and outcomes related to PSM. However, questions remain about how to best keep the motivation of public sector employees sustainably high, and about what factors embolden or enervate the motivation and morale of public sector employees. This study focuses on the sustainable work motivation of local government employees. Its arguments and discussions draw from PSM theory, total quality management (TQM) principles, and inspiration from Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study examines and attempts to uncover the career trajectories of local government employees in the State of Oregon, United States, through a rigorous grounded theory method (GTM) of inquiry. The study reveals a number of factors that facilitate and/or inhibit employees’ PSM. We expect the findings to be useful for both practitioners and government human resource policymakers in understanding the subtlety and vicissitudes of public sector employee careers and motivations.

Keywords: sustainable motivation; public service motivation; total quality management; grounded theory method; local government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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